Abstract
Introduction: Oral cancer is considered as one of the few life- threatening oral diseases. The survival rate of this malignancy is affected by different patient and tumour related factors.
Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the 5 and 10-year survival of patients with oral cancer registered in two main centres in Isfahan for diagnosing and managing oral cancer patients.
Methods: All patients diagnosed with oral cancer (240), who attended the dental school of Isfahan university and the Syed al Shohada hospital during 2004-2009 were included. Demographic data of patients and data on tumour characteristics including site, histologic type, staging and treatment type were obtained. Survival curves were generated using Kaplan-Maier curves. Univariate and multivariate analyses of the relations between survival and the aforesaid factors were made using the log-rank test and Cox’s regression analysis. The statistical significance of the tumour characteristics on survival was tested at the 0.05 (p=0.05) level.
Results: The overall survival rate was 57.6% and 24.7% after 5 and 10 years respectively. Sex and staging of tumour were not correlated to survival. Age under 60 years (OR= 0.089, p= 0.017), involvement of sites other than the tongue (OR=0.24, p=0.03) and combined treatment versus surgery (OR=0.073, p=0.004) were significantly correlated to lower death rate.
Conclusions: Among the possible factors, both demographic (age) and tumour related factors and treatments were correlated to better prospects of survival of patients. Therefore, survival of patients is a complicated issue and needs to be considered by both the patients and the care providers for early detection and diagnosis.
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